


Other Levels

by dragon_lady



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Doctor Who AU, M/M, Science Fiction, Slow To Update, Time Travel, VictUuri, viktuuri
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-29
Updated: 2017-10-12
Packaged: 2018-12-21 03:03:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 15,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11934975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragon_lady/pseuds/dragon_lady
Summary: The Oncoming Storm, the Lonely Angel, the Magician, the Destroyer of Worlds, the Madman-in-A-Box… those were only a few names they called a certain Time Lord who had reached his 27th incarnation. The Doctor was a lot more than the cleverest man ever walked upon the universe, only to have missed a certain persistent presence in his every step and to have never entertained a number of possibilities to end his everlasting career as the Caretaker of the World.Just another series of a certain Time Lord’s adventure involving his companion, Yuuri Katsuki quickly learned. He was just one of the dime-a-dozen the Doctor’s companions, after all.A hidden plot had been in motion, causing great shifts over the course of realms in the Doctor’s final incarnation without the both of them knowing.[OR just my excuse to write the damn thing that's been gnawing my mind since January 2017]





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Apologies in advance for any grammatical errors. If you're interested, betareaders are more than welcome. Please send me a message on my [tumblr](http://dancingonthegrave.tumblr.com/)  
> This prologue was written with the help of [Eclair](http://archiveofourown.org/users/KnightYuuki/pseuds/KnightYuuki) and [Kittu](http://www.aminoapps.com/p/4rhpfd) on Amino  
> I hope you enjoy the journey as much as I love setting it up (o,~)

_This is not a story of leaving, nor a story of returning. This is, my dear, a story of how a soul stays, spreading far and wide across the stars, latching firmly deep within another. Thus, savour the sight before you, burn it into your evergreen soul. Let it live on inside you. For this time tomorrow, we’ll be nothing but a story. We are all stories in the end. However, ours is a sin. Taboo to be pondered upon._

_For even the restless will slumber, even the invincible shall succumb and wither, for the epilogue shall commence and the curtains closed._

_Under the same sky that links us, thousands of memories slowly scattered around my mind. Like an old film, waves of melancholy hit me. A small smile slowly blossoms as the past greets. As the story unfold, black and white are never the only representations. Never does a story tell only of the Chivalrous, the Courageous, or even the Bonafide. It always has more than that. Always._

“... I'm burning up a sun just to say goodbye.”

_A memory of us standing on a deserted beach comes invading my mind. You see it, don’t you? Yes, that's us. That’s us in another reality._

'Another reality?' _you ask. A crevasse formed between your brows. Your eyes look like crystals... or are those tears you’ve been holding in?_

'Have I disappointed you, love?'

_You shake your head while saying that I’ve never disappointed you. Well, love, hasn’t that memory proved otherwise?_

'Viktor, it's not from another reality,' _you added._ _Ah, didn’t think I would ever hear that name uttered from your beautiful lips again; the sound of it has never excited these hearts this much._ 'It's from here, this reality. The one we are about to leave, the one we're about to witness it destroyed, crumbled.’ _With us in it._

_Another memory comes flooding in again―_

A hurried knock on the door interrupted the platinum haired man who was reading a lilac-jacketed book with intertwining silver and gold curvy lines embellished the entire cover, his legs stretched out on top of a console of the spaceship he captained. Just when he was getting to the part he had ached to know. Frustration crept up even more. With a heavy sigh, he closed the book and stored it back again inside his jacket pocket. His lips curved in a smile as he glanced over the computer screen, showing the interrupter standing outside his spaceship.

The door opened once he pointed and clicked on his sonic-screwdriver at it, presenting a beautiful man with undercut and wavy two-toned blond and brown hair, looking annoyed. “Give me back my book.”

The platinum haired man grinned. “Chris!” The smile didn’t reach his eyes.

The blond only furrowed his brows above the solemn gaze under those curly eyelashes, walking toward the other. “It was given to me to look after.”

“And now I’m taking it back.”

“Who says it’s from _you_?” Irritation was palpable in Chris’ voice responding his counterpart’s petulant remarks. If the blond hadn’t known any better, he would have thought that dejected looking man sitting on one of the co-pilot chairs had just escaped from one of those whimsical adventure-turned into-battle for survival of some race of species. However, while the platinum haired man's appearance was as perfectly decent as some banquet attendee's, the look on his face was nowhere near spirited. 

His eyes looked as though he’d witnessed the most horrifying sight known to men countless of times. The darkened part under his eyes betrayed the once most lovely aquamarine eyes that were always hungry for adventures, and now there were only exhaustion, desperation... longing. His fair complexion was once like those tales about fairy-kind, glowing as if every pore consisted stars, now it looked more like that of a corpse; pale and void of life. Had he eaten anything? Not that Chris knew what his species’ diet was, but surely a body with binary vascular system like that needed sustenance.

Chris chose not to comment anything before sitting next to him. “Stop that stupid grinning, Doctor. You look miserable.”

“Tell me something I don’t know, Chris,” he leaned against the blond man’s shoulder.

Chris sighed and patted the Doctor on the back. “Wait here.” He then stood and went to get a blanket from god knows where – he just relied on the device in his hand programmed to find anything with wools or cottons around. He honestly still was unable to completely memorize all nook and cranny of this massive ship his friend had, despite he had served his own fair shares of adventures together some time ago. 

He was back at the control room where he last left the Doctor sitting on co-pilot chair almost half an hour later, bringing a piece of knitted quilt in his hands, only to be greeted with the sight of his friend tinkering around the console, looking energetic. The Doctor was now running around punching buttons here and there, “Where the hell did you run off to?”

“Uhm, I was thinking to wrap your miserable arse in blankie.” Chris’ eyes followed the man’s haphazard movements with concerns.

He cooed at his friend’s quip, “Ooooh, thank you, Chris! I feel better now.” The Doctor’s hand extended towards the door gesturing the guest to leave. The ghost of miserable piece of lump Chris saw earlier was as good as vanished from his features.

Chris regarded him incredulously. “Yeah, right. I believe you _feel_ better now, Doctor. Don’t think I’ll forget to get my book back from you,” he hissed. Perhaps he was only imagining the mournful look on the Doctor’s face earlier.

The Doctor dramatically snapped his fingers. “Damn!” he handed him the lilac jacketed book. “You caught me.”

Shaking his head with a scoff, Chris took the book from the Doctor’s hand, putting it inside his small drawstring pouch tied to his belt. The Doctor leaned back against the console, hands were sliding into his trousers’ pockets.“Bigger on the inside?” Chris heard him asking. He chuckled, “You bet.” Doctor gave him an appreciative nod.

Chris could hear him humming an old song, an old Earth song. He eyed the Doctor worriedly. “What was that earlier?”

“Hmm?” Doctor gazed up, regarding him questioningly. “What was what?”

“You looked like you wanted nothing but death earlier. Heck, you looked like a corpse—Well even _I’ve_ seen a corpse looked better than you did.” Chris’ eyes searched for answers in the pair of aquamarine eyes before him. “I thought you were on the verge of regenerating, Doctor.”

The Doctor laughed drily. “Wouldn’t that be lovely.” Chris’ brows furrowed at that. “No, I was just hungry—And I just found a perfect place to dine in! I’m going now, wanna come?”

“And be the third-wheel again? No, thank you.” Chris decided he wouldn’t have his answer straightaway. Travelling with the Doctor had granted him a great deal of knowledge, and having his questions answered right away was never one of them. Time always had every answer after all. Bidding his goodbye, he walked towards the door while his hand caressing the console. “See you later, pretty.”

“What, now you only call my TARDIS pretty and not me?” Chris only blew him a kiss before walking away.

Doctor stared at his friend’s back a moment. “Chris.”

He turned around at his track, just a mere step away before opening the door. “Yeah?”

“You called me ‘Doctor’,” he mused.

“So?” The Doctor threw him a lopsided smile and said nothing while staring at him hard Chris felt like he could see the brain working inside that thick skull of his friend’s. “Well, you’re _the Doctor_. What should I call you then? Mental patient? That suits you more at the moment, to be honest.”

He chuckled. “I feel like I should be offended,” he then slid the TARDIS main computer to him, putting his blue-framed glasses on. “You’ve never looked into the book, haven’t you?” His focus directed at the screen now.

“No?” The Doctor gazed his way again, raising an eyebrow. “No, Doctor. I’ve never looked into it.” He felt like he should ask why the Doctor asked him that, but he shrugged it off. “See you, Doctor.” Chris was about to open the door when he was stopped again.

“You know,” he typed in the time and space coordinates, “’looking after’ means you need to check the content regularly to make sure.” He salvaged a file from TARDIS data storage, and looked up to the blond man standing by the door who was regarding him with the same questioning look plastered on his face since he was back from his thirty-minute adventure around TARDIS to get a blanket. How hard was it to find the room anyway? The wardrobe was located just before the library, next to the ice rink, after a corridor on the fifth floor.

“Nah, I don’t think so.” As much as Chris wanted to, the request remained the same _‘Keep this book. Keep it safe. Keep it hidden.’_ Though there was no clear request not to read it… “No, I don’t think I could bring myself to read it, Doctor.” He, in fact, had been tempted quite few times already in his drunken nights when he felt stupid and lonely. However, he would never mention that to the Doctor. Besides, it was a request. The story would be different if it had been a direct order from the highest authority. The pang of irony hit him; the Doctor _was_ the highest authority in the universe.

“Sometimes, some things must be left unknown and let the time answer it for us.” They both said it at the same time. Doctor’s mouth formed a heart-shaped smile while Chris laughing.

“While that’s true, in this particular case, you should read it, Chris.” Doctor sat back, his gaze now was transfixed to the screen. “And never let a Time Lord read it.” Chris’ eyebrows shot up. “Well, again— Never let a Time Lord read it _again_.”

“Right…” Chris chuckled. “Well you’re the last of Time Lord so—Wait, how much did you read, Doctor?”

Doctor shrugged, “Enough.” His legs were on the console again, this time he was watching a video on his computer at the console, hands folded on his chest. After a moment, it seemed he’d forgotten Chris was still there. He glanced at Chris again, “I thought you were leaving?”

Chris felt something was off with the Doctor. To be frank, Doctor was always off. This time, however, it felt final. The unease feeling started creeping up. He felt his chest tightened. “You’re leaving for good, aren’t you?”

Doctor eyed him briefly before his head fully turned to regard him. “Yes.”

“What about Yuuri?”

“You’ll meet him again sometime, someday.”

“He’s not coming with you?” The very idea was impossible to fathom for Chris. Yuuri had rendered his friend into a lovesick idiot to the point the two decided to engage to be married. “Speaking of whom, I haven’t seen him. Is he out with Phichit?” His eyes were scanning through the control room. “And, tell me, _why_ are you wearing Yuuri’s glasses again?” he lilted. Chris’ smile faltered immediately after he caught the painful glint in Doctor’s eyes. Yet, the Doctor was smiling.

“Oh Chris, you should never let me read the book nor the fact you’ve met me here,” he pulled his glasses off, pinching the bridge of his nose. Exhaustion was not enough to name the look on the Doctor’s face. “Don’t worry, you’ll meet me again. Now, off you go.” Doctor really shooed Chris away.

Chris then realized that the platinum haired man sitting over there was not the Doctor he went swimming together in Barcelona—the planet, not the city—a week ago. He noticed the ring was still there on his ring finger. Everything was still the same, except the look on his face was everything but every bit of the Doctor who swam with him. Apparently, Chris was not imagining that mournful look on his friend’s face when he first stepped into the TARDIS a while ago. Now the anguish was vivid when he looked carefully at the man.

“This is goodbye then.” He saluted his friend before finally opening the door and stepping away. Turning back after a few steps, he looked at the TARDIS one last time. He saw what he hadn’t noticed before. Just what the Doctor had been doing and where exactly? He did not dare to venture a guess. The pouch at his belt never felt so heavy. The unease feeling made him come with a resolve.

The engine started, TARDIS made the unique sound which could mean hope for countless of people and also bring lesser men to their knees knowing that the Doctor was coming to bring them judgment. The greatest spaceship in the universe carrying the greatest man departed for another journey.

Chris saluted until TARDIS completely dematerialized in front of him.

 

***

 

Viktor's eyes widened, stunned. Fragments of Yuuri’s life came crushing in like massive waves, flooding in to his mind. Before he could help it, his eyes started to glisten until the rain came pouring down. Where did all this water come from anyway?

It was a perfect camouflage and he took comfort in it while gathering his beloved in his arms. Revelling in the warmth of his beloved’s body, he wondered if the "I" and "You" right now would be the same "I" and "You" for the next time.

So he prayed that it would.

Then, almost immediately, after Viktor uttered his prayer on the back of his mind, Jesus Christ came and said, “I have heard your prayers.”

They both pulled apart immediately, hearing the deep and calming voice descending from above, their eyes looking for the source. Viktor could not help but furrow his eyebrows once he saw where the voice had came from. His hand stopped Yuuri's head from turning away to look. "Yuuri," his voice was hoarse. "Just look at me," he glanced at the newcomer standing a few meters away behind Yuuri.

“What is it, Viktor? Whose voice was that?” It sounded human, Yuuri was sure of it.

Yuuri's eyes seemed calculating the probability of another human survivor at the end of time and space like this while gazing hard at a pair of aquamarine eyes before him. Other than Yuuri, no one could survive five million years in this universe. He had to rule out Viktor as he was not human and the last of his kind, well other than his archenemy who called himself The Master whose real name Yuuri never knew. Hadn’t he thrown himself to the Dimensions Portal in order to save his own neck from the raging vortex energy surrounding a stadium a very long time ago? And there had been exploding stars, obliterating neighboring galaxies, cataclysm was in motion. This Planet Algia located in Coris system, the farthest star system in the opposite site of the catastrophe, had been the safest place Yuuri could think of to seek refuge, waiting for his impending demise as the catastrophe reached the edge of this galaxy. Who was this newcomer?

“Viktor,” Yuuri prompted. His hand grabbed Viktor's on his cheek.

“Sshh.” Yuuri's eyebrows shot up at Viktor shushing him; it was adorable and annoying at the same time. They just finally met again after many, many years and he just shushed him? Yuuri was about to talk again when Viktor cut him off with “do you have faith?”

“Yes.”

Viktor eyed Yuuri incredulously as though he was saying _"R_ _eally? After all this time?"_ Yuuri suppressed his chuckle. Viktor said, "Okay, what's your belief then?"

The man standing behind Yuuri cleared his throat. Yuuri tried to turn his head but Viktor's hands still rested on the sides of Yuuri's head. The man looked exactly like all the classic paintings and sculptures of him in every church and museum found on classic Earth millennia ago. Viktor tried his best not to squint his eyes suspiciously to the bearded man.

"Ssh! Just a moment, sir," his index finger shot up gesturing the man to wait. "I've got to prepare my love, you know, and of course I'm cooking up plan for the things I need to say to you while at it."

The bearded man opened up his mouth to respond, but "A-a-ah!" Viktor stopped him. "I'm still in the middle of conversation here, do you mind?" Viktor gestured for the man to turn around, looking away from the couple.

The man's brows furrowed, seemed lost for words. But he did what Viktor asked anyway. He turned around, facing away.

“So rude!” Viktor exclaimed in disbelief. “Where were we?―oooh right! what's your belief, Yuuri?”

“Viktor, who is it?"

“Just answer my question, love.”

Yuuri shrugged. “Well... living this long isn't really giving me a choice other than the fact that 'everything has its time and everything ends'―just like you used to say. I've witnessed tons; many galaxies, planets burnt into oblivion. I've suffered loss countless of times. So, if I have a belief, if I have to believe one thing, I believe in you.”

Viktor's face lit up. "Oh" was he was able to say as the last sentence Yuuri said actually the very sentence he'd said while he had argued about Faith with the Beast two years ago—Had it been only two years? Yuuri’s memories said millions more though. “If he had to believe one thing, he believed in Yuuri,” that was what he’d said to the Beast. Funny how now he was about to go over that line again with somewhat similar level being right before all realities crumbled down.

"Good answer," he added. "Now, then," he let go of Yuuri and facing the man, "hey there, son of Mary! Been a while."

The cheerful tone, the wide smile Viktor was showing didn’t match the strain on his eyes. His hand gripped Yuuri's arm tightly, he took a step towards the stranger while Yuuri ever so slightly turning on his heels following Viktor's moves.

The bearded man turned around paying the couple interested look on the familiar features of his face. Yuuri had to rub his own eyes when he was fully facing the newcomer. His eyes widened at the sight before him.

As if the circumstances were not beyond logic enough, as if the cataclysmic view surrounding them weren’t wild enough to register, now the figure who had been worshiped devotedly by billions once upon a time was standing in front them. He was everything Yuuri remembered had seen a long time ago.

“Viktor,” he said under his breath. “That’s―”

“I know.”

The bearded man smiled. Yuuri could feel his heart fluttering at the sight. If he’d been in disbelief that the end for the both of them was about to happen, he believed that now.

“Hello, Doctor. Did you miss me?”

 

 


	2. Drifting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As opposed to his remarks to surprise the universe, the Doctor was set for the longest chain of surprises yet in his life as a Time Lord. Poor Doctor; he didn’t know. Or just too slow to realize that it took two sides, at times more, to every story.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Warning:  
> \- Contains a lot of information regarding Time Lord in this particular AU  
> \- Contains quite a number of depressing and suicidal thoughts  
> \- Major characters deaths.
> 
> Happy belated birthday, Yuri on Ice :')

A shot of pain crept in every inch of the Doctor’s body. A loud groan escaped his lips as he ever so slowly sat up and inspected his body. Surely he had hoped he would have gotten used to the feeling of his cells rewriting itself until the very atom of his being by the time he reached 5th regeneration process. But it was still excruciating even in his 26th.

Teeth; checked. Fingers; five in each hand. Toes—he wriggled them inside his battered shoes; five each. Pancreas, intestines, kidneys; he checked them all. His heartbeat felt normal from both hearts. The rate was a tad quicker; that was to be expected. Excitement for his new body and new possible adventures ahead was surely the cause. He groaned louder and more intense as another excruciating shot along with golden glow engulfing his body again. It was one of those times when he thought a permanent death was more merciful. He should have died. How he wished he’d died…

Time Lords were able to regenerate 12 times only, yet this was his 26th. He vaguely remembered how glad he had been for being granted an excessive amount of regeneration energy from them all those lifetimes ago and how he’d spent the next five centuries and two regeneration processes working to find Gallifrey between his usual ventures with companions he’d picked up along the way. That meant he’d spent three lifetimes obsessing over his home planet, only to meet with loathsome rejection from Lord President and The Woman’s infuriating conundrum, which he had not even bothered to memorize, but he remembered it had made him more agitated. Not that he hadn’t wanted to memorize, for all his life he’d wanted nothing but peace for his planet ever since he fled its Last Great Time War and he’d needed every tip to help ending it, but he had had to save his and The Master’s necks first from Rassilon’s gauntlet. Over the years, the thought of he had been only a hair’s breadth away from certain death on the front line with his childhood friend had become a rather better scenario than to have infinite amount of regeneration energy for him to watch the universe die.

The Doctor set a reminder for himself to ask about this conundrum to The Master should they ever meet again, which he very much hoped they would, for eternity was never a friendly place for immortals.

Sighing heavily as the scorching pain subsided, he brought himself up, reaching for the edge of TARDIS console as support when short strands of platinum blond hair fell covering his eye. Quickly he grabbed the small mirror attached to the console’s extension, a pair of aquamarine eyes stared back at him.

So he was a male now; short strands of platinum blond draped messily over his left eye, strong jaw line, masculine broad shoulders, looking awkward in female clothing he was wearing. Fingertips glided over the fair complexioned skin on his cheeks.

He whined loudly at his own reflection, grasping at the strands. “I’d rather fond of my ginger hair. Now I look like I just drank a whole bottle of bleach!” Not that his last incarnation had not been fair skinned, but at least the hair had been long and burnt orange, draping over his feminine waist and his eyes had been jade with a kiss of amber. Now he must spend his 27th lifetime looking like winter personified— _Oh._

There were many ways to deliver permanent death to a Time Lord or any other Gallifreyan; one being no less cruel than the rest. Even so, there was the most harrowing way of all and rarely happened as far as he had known in the time of war—it was to let them die of old age; dreading in every biological indicator that, yes, your time to meet the end was approaching. It was similar to human finding their first grey hair, and then snowballed to a series of illnesses years after that until their body just gave out. “Die of old age” seemed common in every other species in the universe and only less common for Gallifreyan and even the least common for Time Lord race. But the Doctor remembered his great-great-grandmother had passed in such fashion. For his people, dying of old age was a translation to have regeneration energy depleted. Gallifreyans regenerated to their initial appearance upon birth in their last incarnation. His great-great-grandmother surely had been a striking woman with high cheekbones and gaze as sharp as Drylands spears.

The man in the mirror had the look that had been long lost under the orange night sky of Gallifrey.

Somber smile formed on his lips as fingertips left his cheeks to trace the line of his reflection. “ _Finally,_ ” he said serenely. “You’ve lived too long, Doctor.”

It had been way too long.

His entire journey, all his days had fallen into the same old routine. Travelling, looking after people—he  _was_  the Doctor; making orders, forsaking his being, dying, regenerating, repeat. Should he live the same way again? Time Lords’ lifespan in one lifetime was vary. He had lived for 5221 years before he’d had to regenerate as the mean of survival, but how long would this body last before the permanent demise he had longed finally claimed him? Assuming he wouldn’t involve in some universal ordeal too much like the last time, he should have at least that much time to live the life of the last of Time Lord. It felt as though he had a bile surging up to choke his throat as soon as he was reminded of that fact. When he died, his memory of Gallifrey and Time Lord history would die with him too. He gulped.

Perhaps that was the best way in order to keep serving the world. His race had disappointed him in the Time War, the universe was better off without them _._ He groaned aloud again, which had little to do with the pain as another realization came to mind. “Ugh! How can I be so stupid! I’m not the last of Time Lord—The Master is still out there!”

It seemed his memory required longer time in restoring information. Living too long had its own cost, after all. He grimaced as the memory of their last meeting turned up in his head. The meeting had not been exactly pleasant. Not that the Doctor had had pleasant memories in relation to that particular childhood friend of his after he’d fled the War  _again_. He drew in a long deep breath, pinching the bridge of his nose. So much for dying for great cause, the thought of him leaving the universe with The Master the way he was then and on the loose made him shudder. He needed to sort out the matter with The Master first and  _only_   _after that_  he would  _allow_  himself to die. 

A Time Lord was supposed to face death by meditation—repentance, acceptance, and contemplation of the absolute, and then chose the specific day to die after reading their will to the family in their ancestral home before finally having their memory transferred to The Matrix. The Doctor scoffed at the thought of the prospects of him inevitably facing those steps, as it was somewhat arduous. He just wanted to die peacefully,  _if_  he could afford it. Beside The Master, he didn’t even have anything tied him to his ancestral home anymore—except for his seemingly fruitless obsession to end the war.

Setting up his resolve and putting on a new set of dress suit, he stored the prospects of the day he died in hidden corner of his mind to be reviewed much, much later—highly likely, when he was in the mood—and embarked on another journey with his new appearance and a new set of goals. As far as the universe knew, this face was new. This face was also new to the way of world outside Gallifrey. What sort of a man was he? The Doctor was more than ready and eager to know.

“Alright, Doctor,” he winked at his own reflection, straightening up his tie. “One last time, let’s surprise them!”

Although, there had been few things the Doctor had seemed to miss lately. He had travelled back and forward in time, had fought in countless of battles in the past and the ones yet to come, had lost and found his planet, faced the High Council of Gallifrey and escaped Rassilon’s fury time and time again. The Last Great Time War had only raged for 400 years at the least, accounted in every history book in the universe in a linear sense. Yet, the event had been stretched out for eternity, as it had been fought throughout countless time periods. The battle was still in motion for all he knew, changing timelines in its wake. The Doctor hardly noticed the shifts in realities he had peered through the Time Vortex once upon his childhood in Time Lord Academy.  He simply faced them as he walked and lived his lives.

In a world where a race called Time Lord existed, improbability was a strange concept. All the same, the probability of the improbable was inexorable. Moreover, few things he should have kept in his mind; every course of action brought about another set of widely different probabilities, and he might be Time Lord, but there was only so much a Time Lord could do to keep the world in order without creating a ripple effect, and lastly, coincidence was an imprudent notion. In other words, he could not afford to use the linear-way of thinking. Those things were common sense among his people and, frankly, many modern scientists of today.

However, roaming around the universe on his own, getting himself involved in way too many ordeals, obsessing over his race waging on evidently never ending war had made those known facts seemed to just go over his head without really gaining any proper attention.

Nothing had prepared him to see Gallifreyan markings and Seal of Rassilon branded on someone’s skin.

As opposed to his remarks to surprise the universe, the Doctor was set for the longest chain of surprises yet in his life as a Time Lord.

It was barely dawn, from the look of it when he stepped outside the TARDIS. Sea of snow capped giant trees greeted him. Everything was white, albeit the sombre ambience of the early hour. He was deep inside a dense forest up in a hill and could faintly hear a singing chorus from the church in the valley. The flickering lights from the town below beckoned him in a strange familiar way. Had he been here before?

A gasping voice snapped him out of his reverie.

“Hello?” his eyes scanned through the darkness of the forest at his right side.

A sound of snapping twigs cracked out of the bushes, and seconds later a little girl was running as fast as her little feet could bring her. The Doctor frowned watching her run. “I don’t bite,” he pouted as he followed the path the girl passed through with her little feet. He shuddered as the cold winter wind blew. “This wind sure does.”

The snowy path he walked lead to a lone log cabin down the hillside where the tight ocean of trees began to thin. He stopped at his track, and looked back up to where he came from. He had climbed down for at least 300m from where his TARDIS landed up the hill. That little girl was quite a hiker. But what was she doing up there by herself?

A shot of pain suddenly engulfed him again, rendering all the critical effort of his brain in a halt. “Argh!” His eyes began to see things. Memories? He blinked rapidly.

_“…Doctor, you need to be inside your TARDIS!”_

Everything was happening at the same time, jumbled inside his head. The voices sounded as if they were spoken underwater.

_“…The ship be damned — You’re far more important, Doctor!”_

He had been on the hunt for a fugitive to the Chorren High Septon with a Time Agent and a quiet librarian. “Wow. How did I miss that?” His brain sure took its time to regain memories.

Everything came back to him in full force.

A fugitive had threatened to unleash the antimatter accelerator to generate a singularity within the Planet Chorren, creating a black-hole. The hunt had not been in their favour, as the fugitive had hijacked the star ship before escaping. The nuclear power source inside the ship had been leaked. 

_“…From now on, I will be your captain. Let’s get you travel through space and time!”_

_“…You’ll see me again.”_

He never saw that one. But he had seen it all the same. Time Lord could see all there ever had been, all there ever was, all there ever could be. He was unsure if it was one of his future or his past. He writhed on the snowy ground.

He tried to crawl back up to his TARDIS. His regeneration process hadn’t been finished. Curses came out from his mouth as he crawled.

_“…Don’t blink — Blink, and you’re dead!”_

_“…Goodbye, Raggedy Man.”_

_“…Fantastic!”_

_“…I am a human!”_

He was burning inside out. All memories from his past lives flooded his vision, this time he was sure. “Dammit! It’s not the time for me to die, is it? Too early to come out and bite me in the neck.” There was no point in lamenting about the past. He was cursed to live with guilt anyway. Everyone had died because of him.

He knew, however, that once he died, his memories would be assimilated to The Matrix. But the timing and the condition of how he died kept on shifting as years went by to the point he no longer paid much attention to it. He sure had trampled with the time too much.

Now, of all time, it just had to come out again. It was as if all memories were poured out of his being. “Why bother having me regenerating if only to make me suffer again,” he then scoffed at his own remarks. It seemed he had been living only for suffering. His vision began to blur.

_“…But I love you.”_

_“…Let’s end this.”_

_“…Please survive and find me, Vitya.”_

_“… Go—be the Doctor, you weirdo.”_

_“…From now on, I will be your Captain. Let’s get you travel through space and time!”_

_“…Yuuri!”_

_“…if I have to believe one thing, I believe in him.”_

He was gasping for air. The sight of his TARDIS control room came into view. His hearts were pounding in his chest as the rush of blood crept into his cheeks. He felt warmth.

“Oh, you’re awake.” The voice sounded familiar. “And you’re smiling.”

Jet-black hair, deep brown eyes, and the unfazed look on his face. “Oh hey, Libby,” Doctor muttered as he tried to get up. “At least one of us has an expression on his face,” he groaned.

Libby said nothing in reply; he helped Doctor stand and sat him on one of the co-pilot chairs surrounding the console. The Doctor only sighed in frustration at Libby’s indifference.

In all his composure, Libby understood how his demeanour could be a lot to take in. It had always required an elaborate explanation for  _everything_  so he devoted himself into  _silence_ —not exactly a total silence—and  _indifference_  for the rest of his life until, at least, he met the one worthy his words and smile.

“Really, Libby? Still not talking to me?”

“I just did.”

“You acknowledged my expression, that wasn’t exactly talking to me.”

Libby moved to the console again, checking on the computer there; deliberately ignored the Doctor. The Doctor shook his head at the man’s behaviour. He simply watched the other man work around the console as he sat on his chair in silence, wondering what made him smile upon waking up earlier.

He was an unexpected friend the Doctor had made along the way. Libby had always been a quiet type, only watching in the background. He had been watching from the bar he had worked as a bartender and occasional dancer, from the library of Alliance Space Intelligence Service (ASIS) where he had earned the nickname—Libby, as in the Librarian. The Doctor had laughed out loud to the fact that—borrowing his friend’s claim—the  _smexy-ass_  danseur had been a brainiac and his friend’s comrade from the agency all along. His friend who was not here, but should have been.

“Libby,” he frowned. “What’d happened to Chris?”

Libby regarded him with unreadable expression—if that was called expression at all—on his face. The Doctor had never questioned the man’s integrity despite his indecipherable demeanour. Libby had earned his place at ASIS; that should have been quite established testimonial alone. 

Had it been a mistake? Libby wondered if he should have left the Doctor writhing alone in the snow. Not only he now faced the face he had spent hundreds of years to evade, he probably would have to act quick to cover his track again.

Several seconds had passed. No answer still while Libby staring at the Doctor.

“What was the last thing you remember, Doctor?” Libby tried.

“UFS Jethro was about to implode. The nuclear reactor was failing, I was thrown out to the vacuum—” His vision began to blur again, but no pain at all. He remembered he had been thrown into TARDIS while UFS Jethro was pulled down by gravitational force of the planet below, and then vanished. He had seen it vanish. “Jethro vanished,” he said it to himself. He felt that he should be thinking something had gone wrong, but he didn’t know why he should.

Libby’s throat felt dry. “It did.” 

“…With Chris. I was thrown into TARDIS with Chris. You were left on Jethro. You—” the Doctor’s eyes widened, “…You threw us out!”

“Did I?”

“You did! I saw you.”

Libby confirmed his suspicions—it had been a mistake. He should not have interfered.

When he had received the mission on Virtual Autoprocessor’s display message from Captain Giacometti himself of the famed G Company of the 113th Expeditionary Intelligence Consortium to lend a hand in pursuing a fugitive who happened to hide in the planet he had settled in for the last 57 years, he should have declined, as he had been merely a librarian. He  _was_  a librarian. And not only his real position at ASIS being the reason why he should have passed the mission—he had been given a choice actually—but also he should have realized then and there about the fugitive’s name; Prog Y’shol. He had said yes because the name sounded familiar somehow; he should have known  _why_.

Should he lie? “Then, I should have died. Is it logical that I am here talking to you, Doctor?” Talking was a great weapon, according some wise man he knew. But even so, lying to said wise man was reckless. Libby couldn’t help the anxious wave crawling up his nerves.

Deep crevasse formed between Doctor’s eyebrows. “No, I suppose not.” He was certain it had been Libby at the hull, seconds before the raven-haired man had hurriedly slipped out of his ASIS uniform as it had been caught fire.

“That memory of yours, the one you saw, was it really what had happened? I don’t remember it like that.” When was it again? Libby racking his memory frantically for the destination’s time coordinate he must send Doctor to. The longer the Doctor stayed here, the bigger chance of the Time Lord unknowingly changing the course of his own timeline. Libby could not let that happen. Furthermore, Doctor was making Libby more anxious the longer he was here.

“No,” Doctor found himself agree with Libby as his mind quickly assessed what his eyes had been registering from the moment he opened them inside the TARDIS again. “Thank you, by the way,” he said as he slowly stood up and circled the console quietly.

Libby noticed the Doctor’s movement from the corner of his eye and started moving as well in the opposite direction almost immediately, sliding the main computer at the console along with him. Without gazing up, Libby responded, “What for?”

The Time Lord shrugged. “Taking me back inside the TARDIS,” he said matter-of-factly.

Doctor’s mind finally provided a few possible scenarios to answer the gnawing questions in his brain. He knew what he'd seen back then, and that was why he found Libby lying to him alerted all the cells in his brain to  _think_ and finally realized the blatant fact that was staring at him in the face.

“It was nothing.” Libby felt the Doctor’s gaze on him. Did he finally notice him? Libby didn’t dare to look up, chose only to log the space-time coordinate into the main control system. Doctor must chase after the Chorrean fugitive as soon as possible. They were wasting time here.

“Oh, I’m sure it was something. This is not a female body anymore, it weighs more,” he waved at his masculine figure; significantly different to the petite feminine one Libby had easily hauled out to the vacuum space outside UFS Jethro and let the gravitational force from TARDIS pull the little Time Lady inside.

Libby had done setting up the TARDIS’ system to set course to 21st century Earth by the time realization of current situation dawned upon him. He finally looked up, boring straight to the Doctor’s eyes. Libby knew that look on Doctor’s face.

Doctor was stalling—he was on to something.

“It does,” he said.

“Where are we?” the platinum haired asked, his hands gestured surrounding him. “I know we’re inside TARDIS. I mean—”

“It’s Trenzalore.”

Doctor simply nodded at Libby’s answer. That rang a bell, sure. So loud even, inside Doctor’s head.

They were slowly circling the console, staring deep into each other. However vague it might be, Doctor felt a shift within the quiet man’s composure. The air in the control room felt heavy with tensions all of a sudden. If Libby could feel it too, he chose not to show it.

“Who was that child? I saw a child out there, running down the hill. Did she call for you to come?”

Doctor had known Libby for some time now, as he had been to Phobetor few times and seeing Libby work as a bartender and entertainer at the bar Chris frequent within Capitol’s outer layer, but only just then the Doctor really  _saw_  Libby.

_“I’m older than you, young man.”_

_“Are you, now? Still looking good, I see._ ” Chris’ flirtatious attempt in his drunken state had been laughable. Doctor had been female then—the third one in his regeneration cycle, could only chuckled at the banter.

And it had been the recent uprising within the Shadow Star Forces in the Planet Gotharia had shed a new light on the  _smexy-ass_  danseur in Chris’ eyes— _“You’re a Time Agent too?!”_ The Doctor had stumbled upon the event coincidentally as the TARDIS had caught a distress signal from the planet where the uprising had taken place.

 _“A friendly neighbourhood librarian, sir,”_ Libby had impassively corrected the man, clearly unaffected by the nuance of the room created by the new revelation. He’d simply proceeded voicing out the passwords in Old Gonthares Language to open an ancient vault within the planet’s mantle to unearth some relics to end the uprising—“ _Combining the Gonthares rich culture and the code Shadow Star Forces had lived off for decades, this is fairly easy—”_  While the Doctor could have not even ventured a guess. Chris, however, had been baffled by the librarian’s immense knowledge and pragmatic attitude; easily switching between significantly different roles; A cute bartender and sultry danseur and a  _fucking_ genius librarian of ASIS who respected chain of command—a feat befitting an employee of intelligence agency, indeed.

Nonetheless, Libby was merely a librarian whose real name unknown and whose intense gaze could trap a universe in a time-lock. Had his eyes been that big? The Doctor cursed at his ever-deteriorating ability to regain memory quickly the longer he lived. He needed all information he’d gathered over the years he’d known Libby. And it would be nice if those eyelashes didn’t fan out like that. He swore Libby’s eyelashes weren’t that lush the last time he’d seen them. What exactly did he remember, really?

Doctor was too immersed in his own thoughts; he almost missed the raven haired’s response.

“Yes, she did,” Libby answered quietly. “She’s the daughter of the family that gave me shelter after I crash-landed here―”a look came fleeting on his expression, and Doctor would have missed it if he had blinked―“over a week ago.”

“ _What?!_ ” he stopped at his track. Doctor must have misheard it. “There’s no way it’s taken me more than a week to regenerate!”

Libby’s claim successfully obliterated the Doctor’s efforts to analyze the anomalies he found on Libby and the surprise when he’d witnessed a slight shift on Libby’s face a moment ago.

“What do you mean, Libby?”

“There’s no time, Doctor. You need to pursue Prog Y’shol,” Libby’s tone was solemn. He tried in all his might to shove down the overflowing emotions as the answer to his question from all those years ago finally came. “He’s dangerous.”

Something on the young man’s feature when he said it made Doctor gape. Somehow, it wrenched on his hearts. Something must have made the ever-so-stoic librarian lose his composure, as the look on his face also made the platinum haired man wanted nothing at that moment other than to reach out to him, offering him comfort.

He had taken few steps closer toward Libby when the latter pushed the lever, and then the TARDIS hummed to life, halted him to find support as the whole ship shook.

Libby agilely backed away from the Doctor, “You must hurry.”

Doctor’s eyes searched at Libby’s. “Libby,” he tried his best to sound calm. “Tell me where did you learn to fly my TARDIS.”

“Prog Y’shol is a dangerous man, Doctor,” uttered Libby weakly.

Doctor knew the fugitive was dangerous, but it wasn’t what’s important right now. “Who are you?” his tone lowered dangerously and the sight of Libby’s retreating figure sent him a strange feeling of distress. He didn’t care for Libby’s real name, for his own had been long lost anyway. “Who are you  _to me?_ ”

Libby’s eyes now incandesced with unshed tears, while Doctor’s widened in surprise at the sight. “Remember your promise to the Chorren High Septon.”

Libby was inches away from the door. There was no need for him to walk away, he just needed a distance from the platinum haired man as far as possible.

“Chris is on it. It’s his current mission—his job, not mine. I only lent him my hand as usual.”

The raven haired man started to fade as the TARDIS began to depart. Libby didn’t intend to come along with him, after all. Doctor’s stomach sunk.

“Libby…” The Doctor scrambled around the TARDIS console to stop the engine. “Libby, where are you sending me?”

He turned around to the sight of Libby’s transparent figure and the snowy background of the hill where the TARDIS had been steadily came into view.

“No,” Doctor frantically pulled the lever back to no avail, and then he noticed the whirring sound from behind him.

Libby was pointing a sonic screwdriver at the console, making the lever stuck. It was the second time in less than a minute had the Doctor stand in a gaped at the man.

“This one is mine—I made it myself,” Libby answered Doctor’s unvoiced question. Tipping his head at the console, he added, “Yours is still in the process of regenerating.”

As if on a cue, a  _“ding!_ ” came from the console—a brand-new sonic screwdriver with purple light at the edge popped up. An idea came to the Doctor’s mind.

He quickly snatched the new sonic screwdriver, but he was too late as he turned back to face Libby, the quite librarian almost vanished entirely. Doctor only caught a glimpse of Libby smiling, mouthing some words, and a lone tear dripping down his face a mere second before he vanished completely before the Doctor’s eyes.

Unlike the jumbled stacks of memory assaulting his head upon regenerating earlier, now one of the muffled voices inside his head was tangible and had a face.  _“You’ll see me again”_ echoed on the Doctor’s mind.

“You’ll see me again,” Libby had said to him before disappearing.

He grasped a handful of platinum locks in exasperation, “Dammit! Of all things,  _that_ ’s what I asked? So what if he could fly the TARDIS, made his own sonic screwdriver, knew a dead language of Gonthares civilization, even manoeuvred a damn massive ASIS ship—the boy’s a genius! I should’ve  _known_!” He should’ve known. He hadn’t need answers to all that, he’d sought for confirmation to feed his ego. “Way to go, Doctor,” he groaned.

He should have asked other things, things that were more urgent; how in the world he got that Seal of Rassilon tattooed on his left arm and what the hell was written there on his skin. The Doctor had been pulled to TARDIS by its gravitational force after being thrown out from the cracked hull of UFS Jethro by Libby. Too far away to see clearly what the markings said, but could easily tell it had been a writing in Circular Gallifreyan letters branded on Libby’s right hip.

“And I’ll see  _you_. Really, really  _see_  you, Libby.”

Was he being honest, it would explain the name—among other things—were Libby secretly a Time Lord. The Librarian; like the Doctor and his childhood’s friend, The Master, Libby perhaps had chosen the name for his own.

He chuckled at the thought. “Wouldn’t be wrong to hope though, heh…” He softly thumped his forehead against the computer screen that showed Libby’s bio log.

Affiliation: Archive Station - Alliance of Space Intelligence Service

Date of birth: 3 April 5343

Planet of Origin: Planet Sto

Home: 33B Toine, Layer 7 -  ASIS Phobetor Base.

Species: Human

“Human.” He was surprised at how disappointed his voice sounded. It didn’t matter in the end, as all he wanted to know was who Libby was to a feeble old man with countless mistakes such as himself. Was Libby one of those mistakes? No—if he could help it. Whoever Libby was, Doctor would prevent that from happening  _or_  simply make amends; as usual, hoping it would all be worthwhile and Libby wouldn’t hate him for it.

Poor Doctor; he didn’t know. Or just too slow to realize that it took two sides, at times more, to every story. Many fought for him, surviving for his sake, thinking that those weren’t his mistakes alone. All of it, of course, happened without him knowing, as he was too busy obsessing over his and his people’s mistakes. Always had been. Soon enough, however, he would be reminded of how much one’s fight could change the fate of the world, all in both good and miserable way.

Soon.

“Soon,” a man said under his breath that turned into steam before his eyes. He stared at the square-shaped vacant space where moments before had been occupied by the greatest spaceship ever built— _“It’s grown, not built,”_  he remembered the way that man would have corrected him if he had said that TARDIS had been built. A small fond smile formed on his lips at the memory. “Hurry up and find me.” Libby covered his trembling lips with his gloved hand. A stream of tears joined the lone tear that had escaped his control earlier upon the revelation of a hidden truth behind a tragic past.

“Stop it, stop it, stop it.” The heel of his gloved hands pushed at his eye sockets in the hopes by miracle could stop the tears from streaming down his face. “Stop it,” it almost sounded like a prayer.

_Soon._

Or was it now?

Sound of cheer was deafening, yet the Doctor’s focus was absorbed in a pair of deep cinnamon hued eyes stared at him in bewilderment under blue framed glasses for a solid two seconds before turning his hunched back away from the perplexed Time Lord. The electromagnetic device in his hands chirped away, giving him all the alert he needed that his target was in the vicinity. He ignored them all.  _You’ll see me again—_ an expletive escaped his mouth, jolting a reporter away from him. The reporter gave him a scared look.

“I’m sorry, excuse me,” he said hurriedly. Ignoring all the incredulity in people’s eyes on him, Doctor paced up to follow the hunched boy in blue training jacket and blue framed glasses.

He would recognize that gaze anywhere. Well, he wouldn’t have, if only Libby hadn’t lost his steely composure earlier at him.  _You’ll see me again—_ oh he saw him, alright. But why was he walking away from him? Libby had sent him here for a reason, had he not?

Doctor lost the blue-jacketed boy with unruly jet-black hair in the crowd. The resemblance was uncanny; Doctor wouldn’t be surprised if Libby and that boy he saw were related. The electromagnetic device shrieked in his hands to the point he no longer could ignore.

“Okay, okay. I hear you, I hear you,” he then pulled out his sonic screwdriver, scanning through the crowds. “Right, so you’re here, eh Prog? Wanna celebrate with some athlete? Weird choice, I’ll say.” He turned around trying to register his surroundings. 

It seemed he had landed in some stadium and a medal ceremony of the competition had just finished a moment before. A wooden door had greeted him when he’d opened his TARDIS door actually; it had been a janitor room, and he’d proceeded walking ahead following electromagnetic scanner device in his hands until he’d found himself in the middle of a crowd and the boy with deep-brown eyes gaping at him.

“Sochi, Russia,” he murmured after a quick scan through the air, “—Oh! It’s Grand Prix Final of 2015! Japan had won—”

“It’s such a shame for Mr. Katsuki if he chooses to retire after this season,” he heard a reporter murmured in Japanese. Doctor’s gaze followed the reporter’s retreating figure—it was the same reporter after meeting the mysterious boy earlier. Too bad for a champion to retire after winning such a grandeur competition such as this, he agreed. He immediately shrugged off his wandering thoughts and absentmindedly straightened up his tie in sad attempts to make himself cognizant.

The electromagnetic scanner went crazy when the Doctor found himself in an ice rink. It must have been the one where the competition had concluded.

“Of course,” he said languidly. The antimatter accelerator needed the lowest temperature before detonating itself. His eyes narrowed to the centre of the ice, his chest tightened. This building was full of people— _This planet was!_  Just what was Prog Y’shol planning? Creating a black-hole at the centre of Earth, of course. He ran back to the TARDIS as fast as he could. He needed to contain the blast. No other planet should meet its premature demise because of him.

In all the haste, if only Doctor had looked just a bit to the right, just outside a restroom, an unassuming boy in his unassuming outfit eyed him with interest.

“He was also running, wasn’t he? Why’s he always running,” he said in a voice just above a whisper. Fixing up his blue-framed glasses on the bridge of his nose, he proceeded to walk toward his coach who was waiting for him at the parking lot outside the stadium.

“Yuuri.” His coach wished for him to cheer up just a bit, even though it was impossible. “You don’t have to decide everything now. I imagine you need some time alone, I’ll give you just that. Just don’t act foolish.” His coach’s voice felt rumbling the entire car journey. It was short, considering it was only from the stadium to the hotel where they were staying. Coach Celestino decided to take a cab to avoid reporters. Yuuri couldn’t feel more grateful.

“By the way, Minako Okukawa sent me a text telling me to tell you that she’s alright and, I quote,  _‘pick up the damn phone’_.”

He was relieved hearing the news, he really was. But he knew what his old Ballet instructor wanted to tell him through the phone. He had tried calling his sister’s phone and the landline number—it had all failed. He knew what had happened, as it had been all over the news. His family’s onsen was well known in the small town he lived, there was no way it had been a mistake. Talking to Minako-sensei would just be a confirmation of his failure in life.

“Yuuri, try to think about other things—You’re hyperventilating. Calm down… Yuuri, focus on my voice.” 

It was easier said than done. Yuuri struggled, racking his head to grab on something from his memory that would calm his nerves — _‘Yuuri! We need a new router for our internet! Comeback home safely!’_  Phichit’s voicemail was like a rock to his balloon, keeping it from drifting off to the vast azure. Yes, Phichit needed him to choose a good new router and install it in their shared apartment.

Taking a deep breath, he counted to three, and repeated it again. He drew in oxygen as much as his lungs could contain, pushing down all his sorrows to be looked up later. Phichit’s home was also one of the coastal regions that had been swept off under the same unmitigated catastrophe like his hometown. His friend was few years younger; it would be harder for him to bear.  _Home—_ Yuuri needed to comeback to Detroit as soon as possible.

The image of a running platinum haired man invading his mind jolted his eyes open; he’d seen that man before. Yuuri remembered seeing him run to Biochemical laboratory with Seung-gil in Uni. He looked up beyond the horizon, “There’s no such a thing as coincidence.”

“Pardon?” Celestino looked at him in worry. “What is it, Yuuri?”

“Nothing,” he murmured.

The entire elevator ride was silent as well. Yuuri had nothing to say that wouldn’t make his stomach hurl. He just wanted to go back to his apartment in Detroit. And he still got thesis he had been putting off. His final research project had done a month or so ago before departing to compete in GPF Sochi. He had managed to conclude his research for not lack of trying and whining from his group mates. A perk of being an Asian; must do best in schools regardless of your choice of career being a figure skater—even a failed one at that. He just needed to finish that thesis once he got back home.

He winced at the thought. He only got his apartment to return now, didn’t he?

“Get some rest,” said Celestino in front of Yuuri’s room, while Yuuri fumbling with his room key. “I believe ISU officials and sponsors will understand if you’re not attending tonight’s banquet, considering the circumstances. But your coach must attend on your behalf.” He patted Yuuri’s back before walking towards his room adjacent to Yuuri’s. “Try staying away from online news, Yuuri.”

The airplane mode had not yet deactivated since the start of his Free Skate, since his attempts to call Mari’s and landline’s numbers resulted nothing. Putting down his glasses on the bedside table, Yuuri threw himself onto the mattress, staring at the white wall blankly.

Yuuri had cried many times before; after flubbed a jump, after a competition, after a hideous performance, after missed the podium. He’d used to call his family, as his mother’s voice soothed him. And when they’d talked, Yuuri would immediately have been reminded of how much he missed his family and friends in his hometown. Then, he would have cried even harder, for how much he had disappointed them all with his failures. Mari would have chimed in, taking the phone away from his mother, and said something to set him straight or sometimes just to tease him in order to cheer him up.

A bitter smile formed on his lips as bits of his last conversation came flooding in. _“Be happy”_ was the last words Mari had said to him through the phone. It was as if a huge hole were punched through his chest, yet no tears still.

Their last conversation had taken place two days prior to his departure to Sochi; holing up in the locker room of his university’s ice rink, he’d called his home in Hasetsu town, Saga prefecture, Japan. His nervousness had gotten the best of him, as he’d been flubbed all his jumps at his last practice session. It had been the last time he had listened to his sister’s roundabouts way to lift his spirit up and his mother’s soothing voice to calm him.

Exceedingly discouraged and nervous about the upcoming GPF, he had cried to his mother. Then, Mari had snatched the phone away from her,  _“Hey, li’l bro’! Think you can grab me one of those American beef buns thingy you said you kept stuffing yourself with? Can’t believe you said it could replace Mom’s katsudon.”_

_“No, it can’t! I never said that, Mari-neechan ― And I keep a strict diet!”_

“ _Of course, it can’t and you did never say that_ ,” replied his sister nonchalantly. And in more serious tone, she’d added, “ _Neither did you ever disappoint us, Yuuri. Never have, never will. I know what you’re thinking right now. I can never convince you to stop belittling yourself, but remember this, my little brother; letting you go training in the US was the best decision we ever came up with for you because we believed in you—always have._

 _“We knew how much you loved the sport and we believed you could be happier once you were there, and you are!_ You are, Yuuri _... You are much happier and brighter now, li’l bro’!―seems like you’re not at the moment, though. Still, you have achieved what others can only imagine. We love and support you always, no matter what results, scores, or anything you come home with. Even Vicchan loves you, while_ I’ve _been the one taking care of him while you’re away―the nerves! Puppers these days._ ”

He had torn between crying and laughing at his sister’s speech. “I- Thank you, Mari-neechan,” he’d sobbed.

“ _Anytime, baby bro’._ ”

  _“I’m sorry, I’m such a cry-baby.”_

“ _Don’t be sorry for crying, Yuuri. I said ‘baby bro’ because it seems you haven’t hit puberty yet._ ” Yuuri had not known where his sister had been going with that.

_“I’m 23 years old, Oneechan.”_

“ _And where’s your girlfriend? Or boyfriend? I don’t know your preferences, seriously.”_

 _“Mari-neechan,”_  he’d groaned.

“ _Okay... Sorry, Yuuri. Never heard you gushing about someone other than that childhood hero of yours―what’d you call him again?_ ”

 _“The Doctor.”_  Yuuri had smiled.

“ _Yeah, that substitute teacher when you were in grade 7, you’d been gushing about him, stars, maths, and whatnot ever since._ ”

_“He’s the most genius man I’ve ever known, you know.”_

Yuuri’d heard his sister groan. “ _Think you can gush about someone else like that? You know, like Phichit does about his hamsters?_ ”

Mari-neechan had succeeded making Yuuri laugh. “ _I doubt it_.”

“ _Woah, having high standards are we?_ ”

“ _Mari-neechan_ ,” he’d whined loudly.

“ _Alright, alright_.” Mari-neechan’s chuckle had been like music to his ears. “ _Wanna speak with Mom again?”_

_“Yes, please.”_

“ _Love you, ‘lil bro’. Be happy._ ”

 _Be happy_  — Even if he could, he doubted he would want to. He lost any means to be remotely happy. Yuuri frowned, where were his tears now that he had every reason to cry? He flipped languidly onto his back, staring at the ceiling. The world was blurry without his glasses, so was his future; it had been blurry then, it was more blurry now. Yuuri loved skating as much as he the ephemeral mystery of the wonderful universe possessed; which brought him the need to make a decision for his future once he was back to Detroit again.

Yuuri shook his head weakly. No, he couldn’t do it. What would be the point to go on? When— _if_  he graduated or continued the competitive figure skating career, people he had held most dear in his life would be no where to come home to. His breathing began to shallow. Yuuri tried the breathing exercise his therapist had taught him until the hurt no longer felt. He understood, however, that the pain was only in his head. His chest tightened until it hurt all the same. Had this been ordinary day with Yuuri being nervous or discouraged, he would have called home to talk to either his father, his mother, or his sister. Yuuri shut his eyes tightly, as if by doing so he could hear their voices again, if only he really listened.

His sorrow cut deeper than any physical injuries he had ever gotten being in the sport. Yuuri had never even properly conveyed his gratitude to his parents for raising him, let alone thank them for all the support he’d received over the years being in the competitive figure skating. He couldn’t imagine the worry he’d feel, were he in his parents’ shoes; letting their only son go training in foreign country on his own. In his all self-doubt and low self-esteem, Yuuri understood now he had been inadvertently selfish. He got it now—he got how much his parents, his sister, and his friends had loved him.

Little water droplets streamed down gently before it burst off as if a dam were crumbled down. Yuuri curled in himself, grasping at his chest tightly. Even a muffled sob was aloud in the silence of a room. If there had really been a god, only He would have known how much Yuuri would trade to have his family back alive and sound by his side, so he could tell them how much he loved them, how grateful he was to be given such compassion all his life.

 _“If only you understood how much you were loved,”_  His mother’s voice rung soothingly on the back of Yuuri’s mind. He did. He did now. And how late he was. If only he could turn back time—

Yuuri blocked the thought as soon as it turned up. Going back in time would change nothing in reality, as the huge tsunami that got his hometown swept off the map had been an established event, a fixed point in time. Were his childhood hero there, there would have been nothing he could do either to prevent it. Was this what the Doctor had felt when he’d lost his family along with his planet? Yuuri shook his head, wiping his tears with his hand. Thinking about the Doctor made him remember about his unfinished thesis. All the same, his thesis was the only hope he had left to justify his departure from his hometown to Detroit to train, leaving his family behind.

What would his childhood hero do if he were in this situation? Certainly not crying his life out in bed, like Yuuri was now. How did the Doctor do that? Yuuri wanted to stop crying; at the same time, he didn’t want to stop his tears as his family was worth every droplet.

Unbeknownst to Yuuri, the childhood hero in question was zapping in and up heavy metal materials together to form a signal disruptor inside the TARDIS one block from his hotel, sonic screwdriver whirring in the background. The Doctor had managed to discover that the chemical and mechanical elements of antimatter accelerator could be remotely altered for delaying the doom. He was coding the command program to generate the sub-α-ray in TARDIS main computer—with sonic screwdriver slot horizontally between his teeth—when he realized his device needed massive amount of conductivity to jumpstart it once he rendered Prog Y’shol’s antimatter accelerator suspended momentarily. He almost dropped his sonic along with his jaw in shock.

Raking his fingers through his hair impatiently, he exclaimed, “We need superconductor! You know how Prog’s accelerator needs low temperature, right—the lower the better. We need metal that’s able withstanding—” he stopped himself midsentence when he realized he was alone. Doctor looked around the TARDIS interior. Right, he was done picking up strangers to accompany his travels. This had been his 5th century travelling alone without companion anyway; surely, he needed more time to adjust. He proceeded making the inhibitor device in silence.

There was no time to find a superconductor element nearby; he would simply make do what he could get approximately within the next 3 hours. Besides, he could try to enhance it a bit. Yes, he could do it. In addition, Doctor  _just_  happened to be in a place where medal ceremony had just taken place.

Grinning winningly, he immediately checked for the hotel where all athletes stayed during GPF on his computer—it got his brows raised. “The banquet’s tonight?— _the banquet’s tonight._ ”

That explained Prog Y’shol’s choice of clothing he had seen by hacking a security camera. He frowned as multiple questions surged up on his mind in addition to all unanswered ones ever since he’d seen Libby setting up TARDIS so easy as snapping fingers.

He huffed while setting coordinate to move his TARDIS. “Okay, no point in questioning while Earth’s in danger.  _C’mon, Doctor—Focus!_ ” he tapped on his cheeks, “Let’s get some gold.”

No need to check up on the gold medallist for this year GPF, he remembered he’d seen the performance on one of his former companions’ TV back in his 13th lifetime—it was Yuuri Katsuki of Japan. Doctor had never seen the athlete in person—or remembered what he looked like for that matter, but he remembered had been charmed by his footwork and how his body had moved as if music were created by it. He was not a diehard fan of the sport, but surely he had been an admirer of all things beauty all his life. Who wasn’t? He had travelled far and wide in universe, back and forward in time, he had never seen any other sport boasted strength yet held such graceful beauty such as figure skating. How excited he was to have reason for meeting this talented skater. He would like another meeting under better circumstances should this one end in good way.

That was how the Time Lord found himself standing before a white door with copper number 509 placed on its surface, pointing his sonic screwdriver at the key hole to unlock it. According the hotel Receptionist, the athlete had just retired to his room along with his coach _—“I assume you’ll be needing his coach too, Dr. Nikiforov?”_

 _“Yes—no need to call him up, he’s been informed. I contacted him before coming here.”_  He had said upon showing his psychic paper to the old man, showing his dazzling white teeth confidently.

_“Certainly. Should I contact Mr. Katsuki then, sir?”_

_“No need. Actually, I’ve been expected—they’re not staying at the same room, are they? I know I should’ve known, I just need a quick confirmation.”_  

The receptionist had seemed to buy the reasoning of ISU Medical Officer – Dr. Viktor Nikiforov. _“Ah, yes. Just in case there’s a rearrangement, considering what had happened in Japan—God rest those poor souls,”_ _he’d said._ _“Certainly, sir. Just  a moment, let me check again.”_

If only Doctor hadn’t simply nodded at the Receptionist’s remarks mentioning Japan, and had asked further about it, he would have had answer why he heard a sound of sorrow from the gap upon opening the door slightly. The room was quite dark. Beside the light stroke through the gap from hallway, the only light in the room was only from a slit between the blinds across the room, letting through a small ray of city lights inside; softly illuminated a figure curling in on himself on a double bed, his back facing the door. The figure didn’t seem to notice him yet. A faint sound of hitched breath and another sob came to his hearing; the Doctor froze. Perhaps he should have knocked first. He closed the door back quietly.

He had been said he was lacking great deal of insights when it came to social decorum, especially with human on Earth involved. So many rules, norms, etiquette he had to oblige. His companions usually provided him with some sense by either warning him in whispers or simply slapping him. There was none now, yet the Doctor found himself refrain from bursting through right after getting the door unlocked. Something about the sound of that crying had reverberated sense across, along with unease chills down his spine. That didn’t sound like happy tears.

He racked through his memory; he was sure this was Yuuri Katsuki’s room and the one adjacent to it, behind him, was the athlete’s coach’s. Perhaps the athlete wished for his family being here to celebrate his winning, his mind supplied. Celebrating victory alone wasn’t nice. The Time Lord nodded in agreement with his own logic.

The knocks from the door startled Yuuri. Was it the time for Celestino to come down attending the banquet? The clock on the bedside table showed it was a half past five; the banquet wasn’t until seven that evening. Drawing in oxygen as much as his lungs could contain, Yuuri dried off his tearstained face and brought himself up from the bed languidly. Celestino might want to check up on him, he better answered it quick. Grabbing his glasses on the bedside table, he walked toward the door slowly. He felt a bit dizzy after crying much tears like that. He sure needed to rehydrate after this.

“Yes,” Yuuri said whilst opening the door. Putting on his glasses, he looked up, “You’re right, Celestino, I need—” he blinked at the man before him.

Both of them were unsure which one of them found the encounter more shocking. If the look on both of their faces was anything to go by, the answer would be neither.

The big brown eyes behind the lenses seized all efforts to supply oxygen and blood to Doctor’s brain, rendering the next course of action failed to conduct. He even almost dropped his sonic screwdriver for the second time. Yuuri caught a glimpse of sonic screwdriver before it disappeared into the gaping man’s front pocket; Doctor noticed the slight twitch on the bespectacled man’s eyes. 

 _Ah_ , he took it back. There was no difference between Libby’s and this man’s appearance. Genetics were strange things, indeed.

Yuuri wasn’t any better either. The platinum locks looked silver under the light, the eyes looked like a pool of deep water, threatening to drown Yuuri if he wasn’t careful; he had seen this man in this appearance once before and in another appearance had been 11 years ago. He had had an idea of who this man was but too afraid to be proven right. As much as Yuuri had admired his childhood hero to the point he had chosen his college major because of their first encounter on one fateful day of his middle-school days, the idea of meeting Doctor again wasn’t very appealing to him. All the same, to have the Doctor standing before him caused a slight malfunction in all his five senses.

However, upon playing the same old ploy over and over again, the platinum haired man was the first one to recover. His face was adorned with a bright smile whilst showing the raven haired man his psychic paper.

“Dr. Nikiforov, ISU Medical Officer, here to ru—” he stopped when he noticed Yuuri snickered at him. His eyebrows arched.

“You think ISU Medical Officers do rounds like doctors in hospitals?” Yuuri heard his own voice was rather hoarse from crying, he cleared his throat. Yuuri didn’t mean to mock the platinum haired man, but he did sound like he did. “Sorry,” he hurriedly offered.

Doctor’s eyes widened in surprise, quickly he moved the psychic paper to his other hand behind his back. “You’re right, Mr. Katsuki—you caught me. I’m Viktor Nikiforov from  _Sports Illustrated_. If you don’t mind, may I—”

“Would you like to come in?” Yuuri couldn’t believe many had fallen for such trick. He assumed they would likely spend all night at the door as Doctor tried to fool him with that blank paper.

“Certainly!” Doctor exclaimed. He realized immediately he sounded too eager; he cleared his throat, “If you don’t mind, I mean.”

Yuuri answered by opening the door wider and gestured his hand at the room, inviting the Doctor inside. He checked the hallway and Celestino’s door to make sure no eavesdropper of any kind. Yuuri couldn’t help his thunderous heart, as he knew the kind of thing Doctor brought along with his presence. The realization hit him like a rock; he really was in danger. If he wasn’t, Yuuri bet all his scholarship combined with his sponsorship money that he was about to.

Doctor stopped by the window. The bed had, indeed, a hint of tearstained sheet on it. He turned to the sight of Yuuri just closing the door. “I hope I’m not intruding, Mr. Katsuki. The thing is my editor would  _love_  me if I managed an interview with this year’s gold medallist. Who wouldn’t?”

Yuuri furrowed his eyebrows at the platinum haired man, and then silently locked the door behind him. Doctor raised his brows at the athlete’s demeanour. Yuuri looked deep in thought, assessing the Time Lord.

“Did you just lock the door?” Doctor was unsure what to make of the raven haired’s behaviour. This man had walked away from him less than an hour before, now he willingly locked himself in with the man he’d walked away from.

“I did,” he said. Yuuri’s frown deepened as he saw the bewilderment on Doctor’s face at his simple answer.

In all honesty, Yuuri reminded Doctor of a certain man with jet-black hair who had said the same simple words. Doctor could only hope Yuuri didn’t have the same annoying ever-so-stoic and enigmatic behaviour as Libby.

“I’m sure you’re confused with my behaviour, Doctor—” the Doctor gasped—“Look, I know who you are. Really, it’ll take much cleverer tricks to fool me than that old psychic paper, Doctor.”

“ _Oh._ ” The Doctor had intended the simple response to be a word of understanding, but it seemed he had made it sound like he just got air knocked out of his lungs by Yuuri’s last remarks.

Yuuri didn’t miss a beat. “Are you alright? What’d happened?”

“ _Huh?_ —Oh! You got me surprised, that’s all!”

“Did I, really?” Yuuri’s brows shot up, bewildered at the Doctor’s claim. “Alright.”

Yuuri knew who he was. Yuuri could see through the psychic paper.  _Yuuri had walked away from him because he had known who he was._  Keeping the wide smile adorned his face, Doctor extended his hand to the young man, “Okay, let’s do this properly then.”

Yuuri’s eyes moved from Doctor’s face and hand few times in puzzlement before walking slowly toward him. “Okay,” he couldn’t help but feel slightly amused at the man’s quirks. He clasped the Doctor’s hand in his.

Smiling widely, the Time Lord uttered the sentence that had reverberated throughout the space and time; bringing people together, crushing enemies, rewriting history, lightening the darkest of night—the sentence that had Yuuri remember why he had admired the man.

“Hello, I’m the Doctor.”

Doctor witnessed a battle of emotion under the man’s façade before he hung his head, covering his face with his other hand. “Oh man,” Yuuri said.

Yuuri had spent more than 4 years studying Quantum Physics, which had granted him more insights about the Doctor from scientific journals written by modern scientists of today and the biographies of those who had ever accompanied this man’s travels. Yuuri even had this man’s biography written by a Russian scientist. And long before he had better grasp on any empirical elements of a phenomenon and all the physical properties of a physical system, he had let himself be astonished deep and hard by the man’s marvel _—“Daichi-sensei is a robot-monster, Mom! The substitute teacher beat him!”_

 _“So, is he a monster or a robot, Yuuri? Pick one,”_ Mari had chimed in nonchalantly, walking passed the hallway in front of the living room where Yuuri, who’d just arrived from school, told his mom the adventure he’d had that day.

_“Both! And the Doctor helped us escape from the monster!”_

Mari’s head had popped in at the door. _“Who did?”_

_“The Doctor! He’s so cool! I want to be genius like him! And kick-ass!”_

Mari had prepared to tell him off but his mother had shushed the girl and told him to do his homework.  _“I hope I can grow up to be just like him and meet him again someday!”_

Yuuri remembered his mother’s smile at Yuuri’s childish statement.  _“Of course you can, Yuuri dear._ And you will. _Now, do your homework so you can be like the Doctor.”_  Yuuri had survived his entire school days with those words and been telling the heroic tale of the Doctor to his friends at the ice rink and ballet studio—to whoever wanted to listen.

Now his childhood hero was standing before him and Yuuri was in the farthest distance of everything his mother had hoped and believed he would be. Yuuri pushed down the tears that threatened to well up again. Doctor looked at Yuuri worryingly as he saw Yuuri’s shoulders tremble.

“Yuuri?” He had just won a gold medal, hadn’t he? Why did he look so sad? Doctor couldn’t really fathom human’s emotions no matter how long he had lived.

Yuuri’s breath hitched. Drawing in a shaky breath, Yuuri gazed up; hand covering his face fell to his side. Doctor saw only emptiness in that smile as opposed to the surge of emotions he’d seen Yuuri’s body had just shown.

“Hello, Doctor. 宜しくお願いします,” he rasped. Yuuri noted the Doctor blinked rapidly and his lips parted as though in shock.

“Of course,” the Doctor said languorously after a few breaths. “Of course,  _Yuuri_.”

Yuuri found it rather strange that he could hear the Doctor’s conviction in the simple response and the way the Doctor’s eyes looked when he uttered the words.

 

*******

 

“Did you make the call?”

The woman shook her head. Worry painted her beautiful face. “I kept getting diverted to voicemail. But I did speak with his coach through texts.”

“I’m sure he’s all right, Ma’am.” The man sat next to her, handing her a cup of hot green tea. He loved the tea from this area. He would definitely ask his men to study it and make it back home.

“I desperately hope so. I just lost my childhood friends and all my life here. I can only hope that boy wouldn’t be too drowned in all  _this,”_ her hands gestured surrounding her, “and forget that he still got place to return.”

“The trauma this kind of thing causes lingers, but when people stick together, everything can be overcame steadily. He’ll be back, Ms. Okukawa.”

The man seemed to speak from his own experience. “Thank you, Captain. You’ve been a great help for us.”

“No, no need to thank me. Just doing my job, Ma’am.” None of these should’ve happened. The man wondered what would happen from this point on.

“Still, we wouldn’t be here if weren’t for you.”

The man shook his head. “Not everyone, though.”

Minako pursed her lips. The man was right. “We’re still grateful for your troops’ presence.”

The man bowed his head to her. “It’s an honour to serve.”

_“Captain Giacometti!”_

The shout cut through the hollowness surrounding the refugee camp. Captain Giacometti turned to the small soldier clad in navy blue and black ASIS uniform, running to the pair sitting on a bleacher.

“That’s one of yours?” asked Minako in interest.

“Size isn’t everything, Ma’am,” replied Captain Giacometti, winking at her. Minako raised an eyebrow, chuckling.

The small soldier was panting heavily before agilely saluting his superior. “Captain Giacometti, sir!” The small soldier looked so young and energetic. A tuft of red seemed misplaced in the blonde frizz. He couldn’t be more younger than a high-schooler. Minako knitted her eyebrows; the future was a strange place, indeed.

“We have holo-transmitter to communicate, you know.”

“Yes, we do, sir!”

“Oh enough with the salute, Private Minami,” the Captain brushed off the small soldier; the Private lowered his hand. “What’s the matter?”

“I found something in the ruins of Yu-topia onsen, sir.”

Minako’s head snapped up from her tea. Captain Giacometti searched at the boy’s feature. “Kenjirou, be more considerate.”

“Oh! I apologize, Ma’am,” he bowed deeply to the woman who was at the ready to run down the hill from where the refugee camp located toward the ruins of her childhood friends’ house. The Private added hurriedly, “It’s just that, I didn’t know—”

The hand on her shoulder stopped her. “We’ll salvage everything we can and hand them all to you, Ms. Okukawa,” his voice was deep and reassuring.

“Yes, please Captain- I-  _please_ , anything to-”

“Yes, Ma’am,” both soldiers answered in unison. The Private ran back down the hill after saluting his superior and the shaken woman.

“And it’s ‘Chris’, Ms. Okukawa,” said the Captain before saluting the woman and following the young soldier.

Minako’s eyes followed the retreating figure of the young men before looking around to the sight before her. The large body of water had just been drained by the technology Captain Giacometti brought with his troops, revealing the ruins of the town she’d called home. A huge reptilian-like creature had been stunned down with the cost of many civilians and ASIS and UNIT troops combined, lying on the seashore with electrical fences and troops surrounding its unconscious body. Hasetsu was no more.

If it weren’t for Chris and what was left of his company from ASIS, that creature had sunk the islands of Japan in an instant. While in Chris’ perspective, he wouldn’t have the foggiest idea that all of this thing had happened if it weren’t for the addition to the team over a hunch. Just a hunch. He had had hunch he would need Libby in the mission. And ask for his hand, he did. Never in the History lessons during the educational period of his life had his teachers ever mentioned about Theogomas rose up from the sea and wreaked havoc in Japan back in 21st century.

“Sir, I haven’t told this to anyone, considering…” the young soldier’s voice trailed off in their haste to the scene.

Chris gave the young boy a side glance. “Considering they’ve been mocking you?”

“No!—yeah…” Kenjirou’s shoulders slumped. “But, mostly because it’s a sensitive information, sir!”

They stopped running in front of the ruins of front gate of Yu-topia Akatsuki. “Then lower your voice, Kenjirou.”

“Y-yeah, apologies, sir,” he said in hushed tone.

Chris felt chill in the air. His eyes looked around the ruins before him. This place must have been the local’s favourite. “What sensitive information you could gather from these ruins, Kenjirou?” he gestured at the site. He couldn’t help but feel doubtful he would find something useful or even meaningful.

“I saw few things inside.”

“Alright, there’s no use waiting around,” Chris said, starting to walk in. The hand at his elbow stopped him. “Kenjirou, don’t tell me you’re afraid of ghosts?”

“I’m not!” the boy said under his breath. “It’s scarier than ghosts, sir.”

Chris’ hand automatically moved to his sonic blaster at his belt, and then immediately dropped it. Sonic blaster would be useless against ghosts, let alone “something scarier” than ghosts. He could have sworn he was not afraid of ghosts. But Kenjirou’s face made him nervous. “What is it then?”

Kenjirou eyed the ruins before them anxiously, and then back to his Superior’s confused face. His hand still clutched tightly at the older man’s elbow. “What did Libby say before sending us off? Do you remember, sir?

Chris mentally groaned. Did this boy need to remind him of Libby? He sighed. “He said he resigned from ASIS,” Chris supplied flatly. “Seriously, that guy. I like him, but it’s such a waste of talent, you know.”

“No, no! before that!” Chris frowned at the young boy. “He looked so troubled when he said it, sir.”

“Libby? Look troubled?” Chris said in disbelief.

Kenjirou nodded. “He told us these exact words;  _‘in the event should you come across something or someone that shouldn’t be there, never utter a word to the Doctor and hand the thing you find there to the next of kin._ ’”

Chris’ frown deepened. “What? When did he say those things? Where was I?”

“You were up on the hill, checking up the Doctor inside the TARDIS.”

“Then why did you ask me if  _I_  remember?”

“Ah! Oh, yeah… Apologies, sir.”

Chris mused over Libby’s words. “Kenjirou,” he drawled. “It’s barely ominous, if that’s his intention.”

Kenjirou's eyebrows creased. “Why do you think it should be ominous?”

“You tell me! You know Libby—loves being enigmatic. He thinks it makes him more interesting? Yes. Yes it does—Anyway! It’s just something we need to conduct, morally normal. Your belongings have to be given to your next of kin once you pass away—you know this, Kenjirou. Don’t disappoint me, kid. It seems you’re starting to.”

“But what about the part to never tell the Doctor?”

“Well now that’s why we are wasting time out here because I know absolute nothing what the fuss is all about. You’re a soldier, Private Minami. Act like one!”

“Y-yes, sir!” he let go of the clasp on his superior’s elbow.

Both of them entered to what was left of Yu-topia Akatsuki onsen. He let Kenjirou lead him. The victim bodies had been brought to the forensic along with others from around town. Middle-aged couple with a daughter and a son, who was currently abroad. What a sight to return, Chris sympathized with their son. He had known the story from the lovely lady he made acquaintance with.  Chris had never been to a hot-spring before, let alone live in one. The family must have been the heart of community, he assumed. They stepped in to what it looked like a living room, it looked smaller and private, located a far back in the building.

“Where did you saw the ‘few things’, Kenjirou? We have walked far enough.”

“Just a bit more, sir. I promise.”

Chris almost knocked the smaller boy out of the way when he suddenly stopped. Kenjirou’s head hit the tatami floor of a room at their left side; the door had gone, it seemed.

“Whoop—Up you go, kid. Give a sign first before stopping, Kenjirou.  _Geez._ ”

“Y-yeah, sorry, Cap.” Kenjirou stood wobbly on the wooden floor of the hallway. “I thought tatami wouldn’t be so hard like wood.”

Chris huffed amusingly. “I thought you would know.”

“No traditional Japanese houses in Phobetor, sir. And the only Japanese I’ve ever known was Libby…” his voice trailed off while glancing away to the room at the end of hallway. “Well he looks Japanese,” he murmured.

“What’s inside?” Chris nodded at the room, noticing the young soldier harden gaze.

“That’s where I saw—”

Chris bolted to the room before Kenjirou even finished his sentence. He should have listened to what Kenjirou wanted to say, because he might have had more explanations to prepare Chris from the things he was about to see in the room.

He threw out gravity orb to light the room, he went rigid in shock immediately after.

“He’s not Libby, sir.” Chris heard Kenjirou’s voice faintly. Because really, this was the last thing anyone could expect to find this far back in the past. “He’s the son, who’s studying abroad and is a figure skating athlete—it’s a sport, sort of,” Kenjirou noticed his Superior’s confusion at the word “figure skating”.

“No, no I know what that is. I was born on Earth, Kenjirou.” He took one of the medals from a wall shelf across the room. They were all silver and gold.

“Oh… I just thought you looked so confused when I said Yuuri’s a figure skater.”

Chris’ head snapped up. “Who?”

“That’s the son’s name—Yuuri Katsuki.”

Chris looked up to the pictures on the wall next to the door; they were all family pictures, with a boy suspiciously looked like Libby. The boy looked young and gradually older the closer the picture to the door. He looked not younger than Kenjirou in the closest one from the door. “Kenjirou, how old are you?”

“I’m turning 18 this year, sir!”

“This Yuuri had moved out from the house at 17 years old.”

“…to train abroad! Ah that makes sense why I rarely found his older face here but many in the foyer and near the little shop downstairs.”

Chris hummed. He turned to face the other wall; pictures of TARDIS, a poster of supernova, the Solar system greeted him. In the near corner, near the bed head, there was a poster of figure skaters posed on the ice. “But this one looks recent.” That poster was the first one he saw upon entering the room. Yuuri looked exactly like Libby back in Trenzalore where Chris last saw him.  

“Here's the thing, Kenjirou, — DNA is a tricky thing,” he said, nodding at the poster, “especially in the span of over 30 centuries. It’s highly unlikely you could get a descendant look exactly like you, Kenjirou.”

The younger soldier nodded in agreement. “I know where you're coming from, sir. But, Captain Giacometti, sir,” he lifted up his wrist, showing the older man a holographic data log and a picture of Yuuri Katsuki from his Virtual Autoprocessor, “Yuuri is in Sochi, Russia at the moment, that’s where Prog Y’shol is.”

Chris cursed his own slowness. “Libby sent the Doctor there.”

He remembered Libby had told him before the group departing to Earth’s Hasetsu. He sighed heavily, “Now it makes sense why he resigned. But seriously, I can guess where this is going. No wonder Libby—or Yuuri or whatever, told you not to tell the Doctor.” This sort of things had occurred in the past, accounted in ASIS database. People had  _got_  to stop trampling with the timeline.

“No, no… that’s not what I meant. Look, sir, according to Earth archive, figure skater Yuuri Katsuki died here today.”

Now that was unfair. “Wh- How?” Had life ever been fair?

“I don’t know, sir,” Kenjirou said weakly. It seemed the piece of information upset the boy more than Chris had expected. The young soldier looked like he was going to cry. “It says here; Yuuri Katsuki was born in Hasetsu, 29 November 1992 and died in Hasetsu, 9 December 2015—it’s today’s date, sir.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) 宜しくお願いします - translates to many things in English depending on the situation and the nuance (?) erghh it's hard to translate it into the exact English words, the closest one (probably) is "Nice to meet you, let's do our best" or something. Doctor knows what it means, thanks to TARDIS functioning properly, translating every language to English (heh practical feature, BBC! Well done! Bravo!). The Doctor in the scene translates it to something more like "I'm in your care. Please keep me safe," considering the way Yuuri looks before saying those words and (probably) "Please stay with me"—as opposed to his initial reaction upon seeing the Doctor face-to-face for the first time at the stadium, OR it could be one of my sad attempts to give a nod to the airport scene. 
> 
> 2) I didn't plan to write Minami Kenjirou, but there he is...
> 
> 3) Hopefully no one noticed, but ehem I changed the chapter's title--from "Silence is Gold" to "Drifting"--because of reasons. Well y'all noticed now. 
> 
>  
> 
> As usual, I'm sorry for any grammatical errors or any mistakes. Say hi to me [@dancingonthegrave](http://dancingonthegrave.tumblr.com/) ^^b
> 
> Thank you, loves~


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